


The Moral Canvas

by DisguisedasInnocent



Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-01
Updated: 2015-10-01
Packaged: 2018-04-24 08:44:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4912876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DisguisedasInnocent/pseuds/DisguisedasInnocent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The ambiguity of humanity and morality. Laura Hollis begins with a black and white world where the moral grey does not have a place, but perhaps life can lead to a different understanding.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Moral Canvas

At the beginning, Laura saw the world in black and white – right and wrong – good and bad. At the beginning, there weren't any shades of grey – no moral ambiguity – no redemption for evil. At the beginning, Laura Hollis was a picture of innocence and naivety and Carmilla Karnstein, a disastrous rogue that forced black and white to mix together to become grey. However, in the beginning, Laura did not see the possible goodness of grey, only the stain of black on the stark background of white. Tainted. Impure. Unworthy.

Laura Hollis did not see the kindness in Carmilla's eyes as she wrapped the string of a bat charm around her wrist. She did not see the desperate hope of a woman tainted by impossible years and broken by wretched decades. Laura saw the creature – the vampire – and the strangeness of a new world unknown to her values. She did not see the beast that laid on the floor beside her bed and ate the demons of her dreams. Laura saw the animal – the panther – dark and deadly without control.

At the beginning, Laura saw the willing agent and not the puppet in the shape of a woman. 

However, the beginning is only the start of any tale and in the middle, thoughts and feelings change.

Laura Hollis saw the cracks in Carmilla Karnstein's nature. The desperate desire for love and happiness hidden beneath the expectations of a woman scorned and burned by their lover. Laura Hollis saw the gentleness in the curve of Carmilla's fingers and the brush of her lips. Instead of white droplets on a black background she saw black stains on a white canvas and believed that it would not make the same grey in the end. Laura Hollis did not see the woman capable of bartering one life for another, because that would be a black act for a person on the side of goodness and righteousness. 

It wasn't the leap into the unknown, and a good act, that allowed Laura to see the world in shades of grey. No, the change in her vision came in the wake of love and loss. It came on the back of darkening her own fingertips, in splattering black onto her clean white canvas. It came with the softness of another's hands coating their palms in the blackness to spread it across her canvas until it shone a bright beautiful grey. 

Then, and only then, could Laura see the perfection of grey.


End file.
